Case Number 11208: Small Claims Court

THE GHOST BUSTERS: THE COMPLETE SERIES

The Charge

"With us on the job, troubles will fade! The Ghost Busters do it
agaaaaaaain!" -- Theme Song

The Case

Children's popular culture is littered with the carcasses of long-forgotten
shows. Tastes change, kids grow up, and what worked for one generation doesn't
work so well for the next. One mainstay of popular entertainment for half a
century was the "spook show comedy." Gothic clichés -- crusty
castles, mist-covered graveyards, moldy monsters -- would be visited by
comedians who would panic in silly, exaggerated ways while the spooks ran wild.
Grown-ups and their children could share the experience of going to a
"horror movie," because the spook show wasn't really scary. Sometimes
you'd get startled by something going boo, but that was quickly offset by the
laughter.

Most people come at Filmation's live-action The Ghost Busters
backwards. They always want to talk about whether it inspired (or was ripped off
by) that otherGhostbusters. You know the one I'm talking about.
But that was not how I first experienced the show. I watched it back on Saturday
mornings in 1975. I admit that I don't remember it well, but I knew it was full
of comic actors I recognized. And I knew that there was something very old about
its approach to comedy (by "very," I of course mean anything older
than I was).

The premise of the show, which ran for only fifteen episodes, is basically
explained by the show's title. They bust ghosts. More precisely, the three of
them bust ghosts. Kong (Forrest Tucker) is the leader. He dresses like a slob,
but he appears to be the smart and serious one. Spenser (Larry Storch) is a
snappy dresser (for 1940, maybe), but he is cowardly, vain, and not too bright.
The smartest one on the team is probably Tracy, a gorilla ("trained"
by Bob Burns, who turns up these days in every fandom documentary as one of
Hollywood's best memorabilia collectors). Their office is run-down; they drive a
belching 1920s jalopy that occasionally needs an anchor to stop. They receive
their assignments from "Zero," who transmits recordings via fish,
rubber chicken, and other silly items that (in a nod to Mission
Impossible) always explode in Tracy's face in five seconds.

Their assignments? Here they are:

* "The Maltese Monkey": The ghost of "Big Al" is
conjured by the Fat Man (Johnny Brown) and the Rabbit (Billy Barty). Of course,
when Big Al turns out to look exactly like Spenser (and sounds like Rich Little
impersonating Marlon Brando playing Carmine Sabatini in The Freshman
impersonating Don Corleone), everybody gets mixed up.

* "Dr. Whatshisname": Bernie Kopell, Doc from The Love
Boat, practices a stranger brand of medicine as Dr. Frankenstein, looking to
steal the dumbest brain he can find to put in his monster. Think there will be
more jokes at Spenser's expense?

* "The Canterville Ghost": Ted Knight plays the famous cowardly
specter, who must perform a brave deed in order to rest. A gangster is lurking
around the castle, too, so ghostly Simon should get his chance -- if only the
Ghost Busters don't get in the way.

* "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?": You might think that the
real threat here would be Disney's lawyers (because of the episode's title), but
it's a werewolf (Lenny Weinrib).

* "The Flying Dutchman": A seafaring ghost (Stanley Adams
impersonating Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh) and his first mate (Philip
Bruns) take up residence in the same spooky castle that appears in every
episode. Apparently, they couldn't afford to bring a ship over from the
afterlife. They need to recruit somebody "empty-headed" to join their
crew. Guess who?

* "The Dummy's Revenge": Given the show's vaudeville roots, it
seems obvious to do a show about "The Phantom of Vaudeville" (Tim
Herbert) and his mistaking the Ghost Busters for a vaudeville team from days
gone by. This is the show's open acknowledgement of its comedy roots.

* "A Worthless Gauze": In case you haven't picked up on it, this
show basically had three plots. One: the audience knows who the villain is
(because Zero's message is garbled), but the Ghost Busters don't and must
blunder around trying to find out. (They don't do this story very often.) Two:
the villain mistakes one or more members of the team for somebody he or she knew
and has a grudge against. Three: the villain needs the "dumbest" or
"most gullible" man in the world -- and it is always Spenser. Wacky
hijinks ensue, then Kong shows up with the dematerializer and gets rid of the
ghosts. Fifteen episodes, three sets (the office, the graveyard, and the
castle), and three plots. This episode is Plot Two: an Egyptian sorceress
(Barbara Rhoades) and her mummy (Richard Balin) think Tracy and Spenser are
wizards.

* "Which Witch Is Which?": Huntz Hall, one of the apparent
inspirations for the Spenser character on the show, makes the first of two
appearances as evil henchman Gronk. His mistress is a witch (Ann Morgan
Guilbert) in full Margaret Hamilton mode looking for revenge against Spenser for
his witch-hunting ancestor. Plot Three: Spenser is duped when the witch turns
into hottie Leigh Christian), while she casts spells to make him stupider than
usual.

* "The Vampire's Apprentice": Dracula and his wife (Billy Holms,
more Grandpa Munster than Bela Lugosi, and Dena Dietrich) need an
"unsuspecting donor" and "absolute dupe." Plot Three:
Spenser will be conned into their trap. In a nice twist on the usual formula,
Spenser actually does get turned into a vampire. No wonder this was one of Lou
Scheimer's favorite episodes.

* "Jekyll & Hyde -- Together, For the First Time": Dr. Jekyll
(Severn Darden) needs a complete dolt so that he can channel his caveman-clad
bad side (Joe E. Ross) into another body and be rid of it forever. Yeah, Spenser
again. No wonder Marc Richards could crank out these scripts in a day.

* "The Vikings Have Landed": Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo himself!) and
Lisa Todd play Vikings intent on claiming America for their own before Lothar
the Hun shows up. They also think Tracy is Lothar the Hun. Mark this one as Plot
Two.

* "Merlin the Magician": Merlin (Carl Ballantine, still doing
great comedy stage magic in his 80s) battles Morgan Le Fay (Ina Balin). Huntz
Hall is back as Gronk. Merlin and Gronk actually team up with the Ghost Busters,
which allows Ballantine and Hall to steal the show. Since Merlin waits until the
third act to tell our heroes that Morgan is the real villain, we'll count this
as Plot One.

* "The Abominable Snowman": A mad scientist (Ronny Graham, in the
second worst blue makeup job, after the Governator in Batman and Robin)
needs a warm heart to transplant into his pet Yeti (Richard Balin again). Plot
Three: it's Spenser who is tricked into lying down on the operating table.

All the episodes appear on three sides of a set of two double-sided discs.
Extras for the set are all relegated to the b-side of the second disc. We get
two sets of show bumpers to lead into commercials. There are two friendly
interviews as well. Producer (and voice of Zero) Lou Scheimer admits that his
initial idea for the show was to create a comedy show that would play on both
Saturday morning but also please the grown-ups (and maybe even play in a
nighttime slot). Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker jumped aboard quickly, and Bob
Burns was hired mostly because he already owned the gorilla suit, even though he
had virtually no acting experience. Scheimer still seems surprised that writer
Marc Richards could crank out scripts so quickly, but the repetitive nature of
the show should make it easy to understand how he did it. (His memory is also a
little hazy on certain details: he only recalls doing thirteen shows and can't
even remember the name of the character he played.) Bob Burns also gives a short
interview, sans gorilla suit. This is the first time I've seen Burns show up on
a DVD featurette talking about his own experience, rather than providing
exposition or showing off collectables from somebody else's movie or show. And
no surprise -- he does take the opportunity to plug Peter Jackson's King
Kong remake once again.

A DVD-ROM feature provides scripts for all fifteen episodes. Of particular
note here is the fact that Marc Richard's scripts always refer to Storch and
Tucker by their real names instead of their characters, but Tracy the Gorilla is
just referred to as "Gorilla."

Rounding out the extras: an episode of the animated "original"
Ghostbusters television series that Filmation spun off the live-action
show when the more famous Ivan Reitman comedy came out. You've probably heard
the story a million times by now: how Filmation sued Reitman's film, then ended
up bringing a competing cartoon to air, resulting in a Real Ghostbusters
and Original Ghostbusters, which didn't confuse kids for a minute.
Anyway, the episode here is "I'll Be the Son of a Ghostbuster," the
pilot episode in which Spenser and Kong (looking and sounding nothing like
Storch and Tucker) pass the ghost busting business on to their sons. Their
adversary in every episode was "Prime Evil," a robot ghost from the
future. This particular episode ends in a cliffhanger, but you probably won't be
eager to rush out and see the rest.

An example of the sort of humor you get in The Ghost Busters: Spenser
and Tracy are waiting around in the dark. Spenser whines that they might
"run into a demon, or a goblin, or a vampire" -- and what would they
do without a stake? So Tracy holds up a T-bone steak. Spenser says that it won't
do any good if it isn't a wooden stake, and that if that is a wooden steak,
he'll shine Tracy's feet. So Tracy taps the steak, which sounds exactly like it
is made -- you guessed it -- of wood. Spenser shrugs in defeat and Tracy brings
out a shoeshine box. Very, very vaudeville. Puns galore, cream pies and seltzer
in the face, "walk this way" bits, and characters pulling crazy props
from nowhere. The Ghost Busters is so old school, you sometimes have to
blow dust off the jokes.

The sets look cheaper than an Ed Wood picture; the performances are goofy
and exaggerated. The music, apart from liberal use of the Theremin for
"spooky" effects, fits the circus atmosphere. Shot on video, the
production has flat lighting that -- well, I don't suppose a Saturday morning
kiddie show probably wants to actually look scary. Yep, this is definitely a
kid's show from the '70s. Of course, nowadays, producers would recast all the
parts with adorable young people in order to capture the tween market. The trend
in the '70s, though, was to use middle-aged actors whose hit shows were popular
with the previous generation. Here, we have two actors who hit it big with
F-Troop. Saturday morning stalwarts like Bob Denver, Ruth Buzzi, Jim
Nabors -- these were the sort of comic actors who had their biggest hits in the
'50s and '60s, but were known to kids primarily through reruns on the local UHF
station.

The entire series is really a throwback to the wacky spook shows of old.
Many of Storch and Tucker's mannerisms and facial expressions are lifted right
out of Bowery Boys and Abbott and Costello films. The very idea of throwing a
guy in a gorilla suit into the mix comes right out of the '30s and '40s, even if
the gorilla is on the good side here. The plots often reference films from when
the audience's parents were young: The Maltese Falcon, The Canterville
Ghost, Mutiny on the Bounty, and so forth. The trio drives a jalopy
and their clothes (especially all the hats) went out of fashion a generation
before. One partner is serious, stable, and frustrated by the fact that the
other partner is a dimwitted, cowardly clod. Even the theme song has a
vaudeville-style kick at the end. The only contemporary gag is the Mission:
Impossible bit that opens each case. Kids today might recognize the secret
doors, chase scenes, and mistaken identity gags familiar from old Scooby
Doo episodes, but Hanna Barbera and Filmation both were stealing from the
whole spook show genre. Goofy, mugging comic heroes run around low-budget gothic
castles while mad scientists and monsters pop out of hidden passages and go boo.
The Ghost Busters is the last of the great old spook shows. If you (or
your grandparents) like that sort of wacky fun, this show delivers the
goods.

But, as I said, it really is the last of its kind. By the time Harold Ramis
and Dan Ackroyd recycled the ghost-catching premise a few years later, they
would jettison all references to the Bowery Boys/Abbott and Costello tradition.
Their ghost busters don't make scaredy-cat faces for the camera, scamper away
from classic monsters like wolf-men or gangster ghosts, or raid the prop
department for retro clothes and cars. Filmation's show is the culmination of
half a century of b-movie shtick -- and probably the end of the line for that
style of comedy. If there is one ghost that The Ghost Busters really did
manage to dematerialize, it is the ghost of the classic spook show.

This puts a peculiar obstacle between audiences of this show in 1975 (kids
whose parents would catch the artistic origins of the show) and audiences today.
Of course, BCI is going to sell most copies of this show to grown-ups who
watched this as kids and are hoping for a burst of nostalgia. Ironic, isn't it?
The show is a nostalgic intertextual game that references pre-war horror
comedies, now embraced by grown-ups who appreciated the show on its own merits
and only may have caught snippets on television of the films the show
referenced. One nostalgia game gives way to another. Now those same grown-ups
will show The Ghost Busters to their own kids. "Here, little Billy,
this is a show I loved as a kid. What do you think?"

I showed a couple of episodes to my own daughter, curious how she would
react to the show's older brand of humor. She thought it was mildly amusing and
described it as "silly." She didn't laugh at the jokes (in spite of
the helpful laugh track telling her when she should), and she even asked me to
explain what was going on with the gorilla (we actually had a long discussion
about whether it was real). She liked it well enough, but when she was done, she
forgot all about the show and wanted to watch one of her usual favorites. I
don't think this means that my daughter doesn't like shows from my own
childhood: she asks to watch the 1966 Batman movie periodically, and she
loves classic Disney cartoons and Schoolhouse Rock. However, I had to
spend a lot of time explaining this show to her, which I suspect made it not
worth her while. Why was the gorilla wearing a propeller beanie? Who is their
boss and why do his messages blow up? Why do they keep throwing pies?

And that is probably the whole business in a nutshell: The Ghost
Busters is still funny for very little kids because of its slapstick, and
still interesting for its adherence to an older comic tradition. But those two
things do not always mesh easily, and you may find yourself explaining this show
to your children more than you'd rather. Which means you may end up watching it
alone, pondering the ghosts of your childhood...